Fantasy Adventure

Hugo Award winner Harry Turtledove is the master of alternate history. In American Front he envisions World War I as it may have been if fought on American soil. The United States and Germany clash with the Confederacy, France, and Britain as the machines of modern warfare litter the landscape with carnage. Meanwhile, oppressed southern blacks head toward a fateful confrontation.

United Nations Special Operations Command sent an elite expeditionary force of soldiers and pilots out on a simple recon mission, and somehow along the way they sparked an alien civil war. Now the not-at-all-merry band of pirates is in desperate trouble, again. Their stolen alien starship is falling apart, thousands of light years from home. The ancient alien AI they nicknamed Skippy is apparently dead, and even if they can by some miracle revive him, he might never be the same.

First contact with a mysterious race of aliens reveals an unusual request; a family's pet dog comes to grips with the newly bestowed gift of human-like intelligence; a poet, in danger and alone on a distant world, makes unlikely allies; hundreds of years in the future, a famous hermit lives in the sea above the now-underwater Harvard University; former friends navigate unsteady peace between human refugees and the technologically superior race that saved them; in a future where human life can be infinitely extended through cybertronic rebirth, one woman declines immortality.

Born in the quiet village of Shambala, Kalki Hari, son of Vishnuyath and Sumati, has no idea about his heritage until he is pitted against tragedies and battles. Whisked into the province of Keekatpur, which is under the fist of Lord Kali, Kalki sees the ignominy of death trumping life all around him. He learns that he has been born to cleanse the world he lives in, for which he must journey to the North and learn the ways of Lord Vishnu’s Avatar, from an immortal who wields an axe.

For a thousand years her existence has been denied. She is the legend that will not die - Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St. Peter. Now in this riveting novel, Donna Woolfolk Cross paints a sweeping portrait of an unforgettable heroine who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept.

The mighty fleets of the Indomitus Crusade face terrors and dangers beyond imagining. As Guilliman's crusade marches forth, bringing the Emperor's light to thousands of worlds, Fleet Secundus is headed for the darkest dark – the Eye of Terror itself. Along with warriors of the Adepta Sororitas and the Adeptus Astartes, the Imperial Navy battle cruiser Judgement of the Void pushes deeper into contested space. But as their journey unfolds, the forces of Chaos close in, and a battle for survival is about to begin.

New York Times best-selling author Eric Flint’s 1632 presented listeners with a fascinating alternate history of the Thirty Years’ War, through the eyes of a West Virginia community tossed back in time to 17th-century Germany. Here, Flint teams up with acclaimed science fiction author David Weber to continue his epic tale. In 1633, the West Virginians attempt to use their modern-day knowledge to build a resistance against the forces of France, Spain, and England.

A world recovering from a devastating plague. A brutal enemy threatening invasion. A young man seeking to escape the shadow of his father. A ship manned by a crew of fresh academy graduates. A top-secret experimental propulsion system. A questionable alliance with a mysterious green-eyed woman. What destiny has in store for the crew of the UES Aurora is far greater than any of them could ever imagine. And this is only the beginning....

Prince Roger MacClintock, Tertiary Heir to the Throne of Man, was a spoiled rotten, arrogant, whiny, thoroughly useless young pain in the butt. But that was before an assassination attempt marooned the Royal Brat and his bodyguards on the planet Marduk, and before they had to march half way around the entire planet, through 120-degree heat and five-hour rainstorms in jungles full of damnbeasts, capetoads, killerpillars, and atul-grak, not to mention hostile peoples, to make their way back to port.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 27 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017.

At 30 years old, Phil is an unemployed gamer who struggles to make ends meet. His only source of income is freelance writing (when he feels inspired enough to add another article to his less-than-popular blog). His wife has just walked out on him, leaving him without money, purpose, or food in the fridge. On the day his wife dumps him, Phil receives a mysterious piece of wetware. A game interface seems to have been implanted in his brain, which allows him to see the world through the eyes of an RPG player. Now that Phil discovers his real-life stats, he can see they're below average.

Kiram Kir-Zaki may be considered a mechanist prodigy among his own people, but when he becomes the first Haldiim ever admitted to the prestigious Sagrada Academy, he is thrown into a world where power, superstition and swordplay outweigh even the most scholarly of achievements. But when the intimidation from his Cadeleonian classmates turns bloody, Kiram unexpectedly finds himself befriended by Javier Tornesal, the leader of a group of cardsharps, duelists and lotharios who call themselves Hellions.

Lieutenant Cora Harper joined the Systems Alliance to develop and enhance her powerful biotic talents. She was assigned to the asari commando unit Talein's Daughters, where she honed her abilities to become a skilled and deadly huntress. Returning to Earth, Cora finds herself a stranger among other humans, and joins the Andromeda Initiative as Alec Ryder's second-in-command. The mission will send 100,000 colonists on a one-way, 600-year-long journey into the unknown.

A rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station in distant Quaddiespace after a bloody incident involving the convoy's Barrayaran military escort. But Lord Miles Vorkosigan and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, have other things on their minds, such as getting home in time to attend the long-awaited births of their first children.

The Krakau came to Earth to invite humanity into a growing alliance of sentient species. However, they happened to arrive after a mutated plague wiped out half the planet, turned the rest into shambling, near-unstoppable animals, and basically destroyed human civilization. You know - your standard apocalypse. The Krakau's first impulse was to turn around and go home. Their second impulse was to try to fix us. Now, a century later, human beings might not be what they once were, but at least they're no longer trying to eat everyone. Mostly.

In the future, robots have eliminated humans, and 12-year-old robot XR_935 is just fine with that. Without humans around, there is no war, no pollution, no crime. Every member of society has a purpose. Everything runs smoothly and efficiently. Until the day XR discovers something impossible: a human girl named Emma.

When Kell and his team return to Earth many years after their departure, they find that their world has changed almost beyond recognition. Not only has a second wave of greenhouse flooding caused sea levels to rise, but society has been changed by the consequences of the climate shift. Few people want to face Jordan Kell's news. He must convince Earth's new rulers that the human race is in danger of extinction unless it acts to forestall the death wave coming from the galaxy's heart.

Working on opposite sides of the galaxy - one in deep space, the other undercover on an occupied planet - and haunted by personal ghosts, Captain Gareth Martinez and Lieutenant Lady Caroline Sula fight to save the Empire from the vicious alien Naxid. In a desperate, audacious bid to stop the Naxid fleet, Martinez makes a move that could win the war…and lose his career. Meanwhile, Sula’s guerilla tactics may not be enough to stop the Naxid - until she tries one deadly final gambit.

Yesterday, Altai was a war hero. Today, he is a prisoner who chose exile to Rhapsody instead of death. This planet, the Range, knows no mercy. Here, thousands of prisoners fight each other for a place under the strange, cold sun. Here, the leftover alien biomechanisms and out-of-control Terran war machines roam in the ruins, and human life is measured in virtual experience that can be exchanged for armor and implants. Surviving in the Limbo slaughterhouse, upgrading to the 10th level, and getting into the Green Zone is all any dead man can hope for. Except not everyone succeeds.

Heron Farad should be dead. But technology has made him the man he is today. Now, he heads a crew of uniquely skilled outsiders who fight to salvage what's left of humanity: art, artifacts, books, ideas - sometimes even people. People like Mari Vallejo. Mari has been lusting after her mysterious handler for months. But when a by-the-book hit goes horribly sideways, she and Heron land on the universal most wanted list. Someone set them up. Desperate and on the run, they must trust each other to survive, while hiding devastating secrets.